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Looking for Free Hacking Tools? Check these Out

Hacking for many is a passion more than anything else although there have been examples where people have used the method for destructive purposes as well. However, for those among you looking to start their foray into hacking, these tools would be of immense help.

Wireshark – A well-known network protocol analyzer, Wireshark allows you to not only capture but also check out the traffic that is running on any specific computer network.

Nmap – Short for Network Mapper, Nmap is an open source tool that is used for discovering networks and auditing security. The tool uses basic IP packets in different ways to conclude which of the hosts are free on a particular network. Other details like the services offered by such hosts, the OS version they use and type of firewalls/type of packet filters they have in place, can also be known by the use of Nmap.

John the Ripper – One of the best tools to crack password protection, John the Ripper is available for different platforms including Windows, UNIX, BeOS, DOS and even OpenVMS.

Metasploit Community Edition – This tool allows you to identify the chinks in the armory of any security feature apart from helping in network discovery. In short, it helps in the elimination of false positives and provides highly useable security intelligence.

Nikto2 – A web server scanner that puts web servers through multiple tests to identify any threats. It also checks for the older versions of almost 1200 servers and narrows down certain problems that are specific for almost 270 servers.

Ncat – A networking tool that is useful for reading and writing data across different networks using the command line, Ncat was touted as a replacement for the much acclaimed Netcat. Ncat is compatible with both IPv4 and IPv6 but at the same time, allows a user to use it for almost a limitless number of things.

NexPose Community Edition – This tool is free and excellent at managing any vulnerability that can be found in a network.

ettercap – A suite with many tools, ettercap enables a user to sniff all live connections and filter content on the fly apart from many other things. The tool also supports passive and active dissection of quite a few protocols and has many features that assist in analysis of host and network.

sqlmap – This tool with open source origins is useful for testing the security of SQL servers and their operations. It features a very powerful engine for detection of such flaws and many unique features for testing the strength of any security measure.

burpsuite – This is a comprehensive platform that can be used for performing tests on the security of any web application. It comprises of a number of different tools that work in a seamless manner to assist the entire process of testing. This includes all tasks right from initial mapping to the finding and exposing any security loopholes that could be exploited.